Memorials of Old London Part 11

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TEMPLE CHURCH: EXTERIOR VIEW.]

"The poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ of the Temple of Solomon"--for such was the full designation of the Templars in commemoration of the quarters a.s.signed them within the area of the former Jewish Temple--naturally had their thoughts turned towards Jerusalem, wherever they were stationed. The design of the church which Heraclius consecrated was determined by the circular chapel which stood on the site of the Old Temple in Holborn, and the prototype of both buildings was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, with which English Templars must have been familiar from the earliest days of the Order.

The travels of Templars and Crusaders undeniably influenced English architecture. One such influence we find in the constructive use of the pointed arch, which is said to have been introduced about 1125 from the South of France--a route which Norman Crusaders frequently followed. For many years after that date pointed and round arches were used almost indifferently in Norman work, so that the strongly pointed arches of the Round Church are not in themselves decisive of the date of the building. It is not till about 1170 that the real transition from Norman to Early English can be said to have begun. In the interior of the Round Church this movement is in full swing. The lower arcade has been inaccurately restored and must not be taken as evidence, but in the decorative band of arcading on the upper wall which frames the openings into the triforium we see how the intersection of two semi-circular arches gives the pure lancet form. The crucial point, however, is the absence of the ma.s.sive Romanesque columns which invariably mark true Norman work. In their place we have columns of comparative slenderness, each consisting of four almost insulated shafts of Purbeck marble, two smaller and two larger. These columns must be among the earliest examples of their kind in England. There is a somewhat similar treatment (two shafts only, as originally designed) in the Galilee of Durham Cathedral, built a few years later, whereas in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, which was rebuilt only a few years before 1185, the Romanesque columns are still retained, though the style of the capitals is modified.

The historical interest of the church is not confined to its architecture. The eight small half-length figures between the capitals outside the west door, though sadly defaced and only reproductions of the originals, stand in close relation to the consecration ceremony. In 1783, according to a writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, they were "very perfect," and were believed to represent on the north side Henry II. with three Knights Templars, and on the opposite side Queen Eleanor with Heraclius and two other ecclesiastics. This identification is in the main correct. The king and queen are farthest from the door. He is holding a sceptre, or possibly a roll containing a grant to the Order.

One of the figures by his side--it is difficult to see whether they are bearded, as Knights Templars would have been--is certainly holding a roll, perhaps the royal licence for the building of the church. Others have their hands folded in prayer.

The unique and most successfully restored series of nine marble effigies on the floor of the church is also of great antiquity. Six are cross-legged, but not necessarily on that account to be regarded as Crusaders. One of them has been supposed to represent the notorious Geoffrey de Magnaville, Earl of Ess.e.x, who died excommunicate in 1144, ten years before the accession of Henry II. Three others probably represent William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke (died 1219), Protector of England during the minority of Henry III., and his two sons, William (died 1231) and Gilbert (died 1241). The figure which lies apart cannot be older than the latter half of the thirteenth century, and according to tradition is a Lord de Ros. Of the others nothing is known. It seems certain, however, that the series contains no effigy of an actual Knight of the Order, since none of the figures are represented as wearing the red cross mantle. Men of wealth and position were often admitted to the privileges of the Order without taking the vows, under the t.i.tle of "a.s.sociates of the Temple." The special exemption from interdicts which the Templars enjoyed, and the sanct.i.ty of their churches as burial-places, made this a.s.sociates.h.i.+p attractive to devout men, who willingly gave benefactions in return for it. It is one of fate's ironies that of the many Knights Templars buried in the church not a single name or monument should have been preserved _in situ_. No separate graves are now marked by the effigies, but during the 1841 restorations stone and leaden coffins containing skeletons were found below the pavement. These remains have been reburied in a vault in the middle of the church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOORWAY OF THE TEMPLE CHURCH.]

The outline of the Round Church was never probably a perfect circle.

Excavations have been made, and some foundations have been discovered underground on the east side of the church, which seem to shew that an apse existed nearly fifty feet long. This, of course, contained the altar. Even so, however, the church must often have been inconveniently crowded, and the s.p.a.ciousness of the later addition shows how much this inconvenience had been felt. The middle opening between the two churches is probably the original arch by which the apse was entered, since it does not, like the two side arches, break into the line of arcading. In pa.s.sing from the earlier to the later church, we pa.s.s from Transitional Norman to a pure example of Early English style, the details of which closely remind us of Salisbury Cathedral. That cathedral, which was not finished till 1258, was begun in 1220, and the foundations of the Temple choir cannot have been laid very long after this. Matthew Paris (died 1259) tells us that "the n.o.ble church of the New Temple, of a construction worthy to be looked at," was consecrated on Ascension Day, 1240, in the presence of Henry III. and many great men of the realm. As the king looked round the new church during the consecration ceremony, it is quite conceivable that he turned over in his mind the idea of rebuilding the east end of Westminster Abbey in this same style--a design which he proceeded to put into execution five years later. The combination of the two Temple Churches into one harmonious whole is a stroke of genius on the part of the unknown architect. It might have been a failure had there been any violence of contrast. As it is, we feel that we are only moving one step forward in the evolution of church-building. The general effect of the columns and arches is much the same throughout, and the view from either church into the other pleases the eye.

To realise the full beauty of this great choir we must in thought sweep away the present seats and pulpit, and reconstruct the two side altars dedicated to St. John and St. Nicolas, which flanked the high altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Traces of this original arrangement are still to be seen in the restored aumbreys and piscina on the north and south walls. The height of these niches seems to show that the side altars were some four or five steps above the level of the present floor. The three aumbreys over the high altar are unfortunately hidden by the incongruous reredos which was put up in 1841. In these locked cupboards some of the church plate was kept. The inventory of 1307 contains various priced items of silver-gilt plate, together with numerous relics, unpriced--among them "the sword with which the Blessed Thomas of Canterbury was killed, and two crosses of the wood on which Christ was crucified." The safe custody of these treasures must have been a source of anxiety. Opening out of the staircase which leads to the triforium a small chamber has been constructed in the thickness of the wall, lighted by two loop-holes, one of which looks towards the altar, the other across the church. This has been supposed to be a penitential cell for disobedient Templars, but it was more probably a watcher's chamber, used as a safeguard against possible theft. The three altars seem to have been at first entirely open to the body of the church, the idea being that the whole building was a chancel or choir.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however, the s.p.a.ce round the high altar seems to have been enclosed by a screen with gates, thus forming a separate chancel. The side altars were presumably removed soon after the Reformation, and in Puritan days the communion table was for a time brought down from the east end and placed longitudinally on the floor in the body of the church. Probably about this time the old stained gla.s.s was wrecked, and the marble columns were white-washed. The only pre-Reformation monument which has survived in the choir is the rec.u.mbent figure of a bishop, supposed to be Silvester de Everdon, Bishop of Carlisle, who was killed by a fall from his horse in 1254. A good many bra.s.ses seem to have disappeared. "Divers plates of bra.s.s of late times have been torn out," says Dugdale (1671), who gives one or two epitaphs in French. Of post-Reformation monuments but two now remain in the body of the church--those of Richard Hooker (died 1600) and John Selden (died 1654). The rest have been placed in the triforium.

Little else of the Templars' work now survives. Below the pavement outside the south wall of the Round Church are the remains of the crypt of St. Ann's Chapel, built about 1220. There is enough left to show that the building was in the Early English style, and corresponded in its details with the choir church. Parts of the upper chapel still existed in a ruined state, hidden among encroaching buildings, as recently as 1825. On the west side of the Inner Temple Hall, which occupies the site of the Templars' Refectory (or perhaps, we should say, one of their refectories, for in the inquisition of 1337 two halls are mentioned), are two ancient chambers, one above the other, the roofs of which are supported by intersecting arches, rising from the four corners of the floor. This work is perhaps a little older than the Round Church. The lower chamber has been supposed to be what is called in the records "the Hall of the Priests." With these exceptions the church alone remains as a monument of the greatness and the glory of the Templars. For a century and a half at the New Temple they were a power in the land. Men deposited treasure in their custody. Popes conferred upon them exceptional privileges. They stood high in royal favour. Henry II. and Richard were benefactors. John was a frequent guest. It was while he was holding his court at the Temple on the Epiphany feast of 1215 that the Barons came before him in full armour to announce their ultimatum, and his signing the _Magna Carta_ was partly due to the influence of the then Master of the Temple. Henry III. at one time intended to be buried in the Temple Church. His subsequent change of mind perhaps marks some decline in the popularity of the Templars. But their downfall in England (1308) was mainly owing to Papal pressure. Edward II. resisted as long as he could, and the more serious charges against them, which were based on confessions extracted by torture, are now generally regarded by historians as unfounded.

The premises of the Temple were eventually (1340) granted to the Knights Hospitallers, the rivals and bitter enemies of the fallen Order. They held the property for two hundred years, but they had their own settlement at Clerkenwell, and the Temple did not mean to them what it had meant to the Templars. About 1347 they leased all but the consecrated buildings and ecclesiastical precincts to "certain lawyers,"

who had already become tenants of the Earl of Lancaster and others, on whom in the first instance Edward II. had bestowed the premises. Great interest attaches to this settlement of lawyers, but much remains obscure about it. Some of the early doc.u.ments may have been destroyed during Wat Tyler's insurrection (1381). A ma.n.u.script (quoted by Dugdale) describes the scene in the law-French of the day.

"Les Rebells alleront a le Temple ... et alleront en l'Esglise, et pristeront touts les liveres et Rolles de Remembrances que furont en lour huches deins le Temple de Apprentices de la Ley, et porteront en le haut chimene et les arderont."

This, however, is not the full extent of the loss which has been sustained. The records of the following 120 years up to 1500 are missing, both in the Inner and the Middle Temples.[73] One result of these losses is that there is nothing to show when the two Inns became separate societies, on the a.s.sumption that they were not independent bodies from the outset. Chaucer's well-known description (about 1390) of "a gentil manciple of the [or perhaps the true reading is 'a'] Temple"

is not decisive.

"Of maisters had he mo than thries ten That were of lawe expert and curious, Of which there was a dosein _in that hous_ Worthy to ben stewardes of rent and lond Of any lord that is in Englelond."

An entry in the books of Lincoln's Inn incidentally mentions the Middle Temple in 1422, and in one of the _Paston Letters_, dated 1440, we read "qwan your leysyr is, resorte ageyn on to your college, the Inner Temple." It is generally admitted now that neither society can establish any claim of priority or precedence over the other. Appeal has been made to the badges, but they throw no light on the question. The Agnus of the Middle Temple is apparently not mentioned till about 1615, and the Pegasus of the Inner Temple not before 1562. It is still a matter of dispute whether the Templars' emblem of a horse with two knights on its back can have been altered into a horse with two wings by the ignorance or ingenuity of some workman.

We try in vain to reconstruct with any fullness the life of the lawyers and their apprentices at the Temple in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But it is clear that, together with the buildings, they inherited some of the traditions. The old church remained their place of wors.h.i.+p. In the old refectory they were served by "panier-men" on wooden platters and in wooden cups, as the Templars had been before them. The penalties inflicted for small misdemeanours, such as being "expelled the hall" and "put out of commons," were much the same as those prescribed in the "Rule" of the Templars, as drawn up by St. Bernard.

It is a curious coincidence that not long after the coming of the lawyers a change was introduced in the legal profession which recalls the organisation of the old military brotherhood. In 1333, according to Dugdale, the judges of the Court of Common Pleas received knighthood, and so became in a sense successors of the Knights Templars. The creation of sergeants-at-law (now abolished) goes further back, but it has been suggested that they were representatives of the _freres serjens_, the _fratres servientes_, of the old Order. Had the white linen coif worn by sergeants the same symbolical meaning as the Templars' white mantle? Was it, as some say, the survival of a linen headdress brought back by the Templars from the East? These are disputable points. At any rate, the common life at the Temple, with the a.s.sociations which it recalled, cannot have been without its influence on the lawyers. Their numbers grew apace. By 1470 courses of legal studies had been organised, and each of the two Inns at the Temple had more (perhaps considerably more) than two hundred students--numbers amply sufficient to resist successfully any attempts on the part of the Lord Mayor, backed by the city apprentices, to enforce an illegal jurisdiction over the precincts. In the absence of maps and records we cannot trace with certainty the gradual extension of the buildings. Such names as Elm Court and Figtree Court suggest that in byegone days open s.p.a.ces and garden plots were interspersed among the chambers. Not least among the amenities of the lawyers' goodly heritage was the large garden by the river side with its pretty fifteenth century story of the red and white roses. It has been said that Shakespeare in his well-known scene refers to the smallness of the hall in the phrase which he a.s.signs to Suffolk:

"Within the Temple Hall we were too loud; The garden here is more convenient."

But do the words imply more than the obvious contrast between being indoors and in the open air, as regards noise? We have a companion picture to Shakespeare's garden-scene in Spenser's river-piece. Some people see in it a reference to "Brick Buildings" which stood on the site of what is now Brick Court:

"Those bricky towers The which on Themmes brode aged back do ride Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers; There whilome wont the Templer Knights to bide, Till they decayed through pride."

In 1540, on the dissolution of the Order of Knights Hospitallers, the two societies became yearly tenants of the Crown, and took over the charge of the fabric of the church. No change, however, was made in the ecclesiastical staff, John Mableston, sub-prior, William Ermestede, master of the Temple, and the two chaplains of the house being continued in their offices. There were modifications, of course, in the services of the church; but nowhere probably in London did the Reformation cause less interference with established custom. Dr. Ermestede, indeed, bridges over the critical interval between 1540 and 1560 in a remarkable way, for on Mary's accession he went back to the old form of wors.h.i.+p, and then accepted a third change of religion under Elizabeth. The building of the beautiful Middle Temple Hall, soon after Elizabeth's accession, is a.s.sociated with the name of Edmund Plowden (died 1585), whose fine monument stands in the triforium of the church. The work was begun during his treasurers.h.i.+p in 1561, and in 1571 he "offered his account for the new buildings." In 1575 the fine carved oak screen was put up. Towards the cost of this contributions were made by the masters of the bench, the masters of "le Utter Barre," and other members of the society. In this hall took place the interesting Shakespearean performance recorded by John Manningham, barrister, in his diary (1601-2). "At our feast wee had a play called Twelve Night or what you will, much like the Commedy of Errores or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called Inganni. A good practise in it to make the steward beleeve his lady widdowe was in love with him," etc.

The halls of the Inns of Court lent themselves very conveniently for dramatic representations at a time when there were no theatres in London. In 1561-2 "Gorboduc," one of the earliest of English plays, written by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, members of the Inner Temple, was performed in the Inner Temple Hall before Queen Elizabeth, and in 1568 she was also present there at the performance of "Tancred and Gismund." Masques were frequently given in the halls of both societies during the early part of the seventeenth century, and with these some interesting literary names are connected, such as Francis Beaumont, William Browne, Michael Drayton, and John Selden.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS RESTORED.]

The reign of James I. is of special importance in the history of the Temple, because the patent granted by him in 1608 relieved the two societies from what had been a somewhat precarious tenure of their property. As a mark of grat.i.tude they spent 666 (about 3,500 at present value) on a gold cup for the king, which was subsequently p.a.w.ned in Holland by Charles I. The outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 checked for a time the prosperity of the Temple. For two years the buildings were practically deserted, and readings and exercises ceased till the Commonwealth was established. From 1651 to 1654 every barrister and master of the bench before opening his lips in court had to take what was called "the engagement"--"I do declare and promise that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established without a king or a house of lords." Soon after the Restoration there came further troubles from plague and fire. Twelve deaths from the plague are recorded in the Burial Register for 1665, and the buildings were again for a time deserted. The great fire of 1666, the flames of which, after destroying King's Bench Walk, licked the east end of the Temple Church, was followed in 1678 by another fire which did much damage to the buildings of the Middle Temple, burned down the old cloisters (afterwards replaced by Wren's somewhat commonplace colonnade) and threatened the south-west angle of the church. A bird's-eye view made in 1671 and John Ogilby's plan of 1677 enable us to follow the process of reconstruction after the great fire, and at the same time call attention to the disfigurement of the church by the mean shops and small houses which had been built against its walls and even over its porch. It seems as if for a time all appreciation of the beauty of the buildings was lost. The Round Church, not being used for Divine service, became, like Paul's Walk, a rendezvous for business appointments, and the font was often specified in legal doc.u.ments as the place where payment was to be made to complete some transaction. That is why the lawyer consulted by Hudibras advises his client while getting up his case to

"Walk the Round with Knights o' th' Posts[74]

About the cross-legged Knights their hosts."

Still, in spite of its shortcomings, the seventeenth century has at least one claim upon the grat.i.tude of those who wors.h.i.+p in the Temple Church. The organ of Bernard Schmidt (Father Smith), purchased in 1686, still survives as the foundation of the modern instrument. The story of the Battle of the Organs has been often told. The masters of the bench were anxious to secure by compet.i.tion the best possible make, and rival organs were set up in the church by Smith and Harris. The decision was eventually left to Judge Jeffreys, not apparently on account of his musical knowledge, but because he was Lord Chancellor at the time. The beautiful music of the Temple Church is thus strangely linked with a name not usually a.s.sociated with sweetness or harmony.

A few only of the Temple buildings are named after eminent men, and the choice of names has been to some extent capricious or accidental. Among lawyers thus commemorated, no one will dispute the claims of Edmund Plowden, already mentioned. Hare Court preserves the memory not of Sir Nicholas Hare, Master of the Rolls in Mary's reign (died 1557), but of a nephew of his, a comparatively unknown Nicholas Hare, who rebuilt the chambers on the south side of the court. The present Harcourt Buildings replace earlier chambers erected during the treasurers.h.i.+p of Sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards Lord Chancellor (died 1727). The eponymus of Tanfield Court was Sir Lawrence Tanfield, a well-known judge in his day, who resided there. We cannot but regret that more of the greatest legal names have not in this way been handed down as household words to posterity. Two great literary names do thus survive, but in neither case was the existing building the home of the man. Dr. Johnson's Buildings, rebuilt in 1857, recall nothing but the site of the chambers in which Johnson lived for a few years from 1760. Goldsmith Building, erected in 1861, stands in no relation to the poet save that it is near the stone which serves to mark (not very exactly) his burial place. Pious pilgrimages are still made yearly to that stone on November 10, the anniversary of his birth. Goldsmith died in the Temple in 1774, and from 1765 onwards he occupied chambers which still exist at 2, Brick Court. A commemorative tablet recently placed there raises the question whether the rooms on the north or on the south side of the staircase are properly described as "two pair right." Some years before Oliver Goldsmith removed to Brick Court, the Temple was the residence of another poet--William Cowper. His attempted suicide there in 1763 shows how bad for his melancholy temperament was a solitary life in chambers.

Charles Lamb, on the other hand--as we see, for instance, from his essay on the Old Benchers of the Inner Temple--delighted in the Temple and all its ways. The sense of its charm may be said to have been born and bred in him, for he was born and spent his childhood in Crown Office Row. In later life, for seventeen years from 1800, he and his sister occupied chambers now no longer in existence, first in Mitre Court Buildings, and afterwards in Inner Temple Lane, from the back windows of which he looked upon the trees and pump in Hare Court. Lamb Building, of course, has nothing to do with Charles Lamb. It belongs to an earlier time, and its name is derived from the Agnus of the Middle Temple over its doorway. Within fifteen years of Lamb's departure from the Temple Thackeray was settled for a short time in the chambers in Hare Court, which were immortalised some twenty years later, in _Pendennis_. "Lamb Court," in which he places the chambers of George Warrington and Arthur Pendennis, is the result of a combination of Lamb Building and Hare Court. Other reminiscences of his life at the Temple may be found by the student of Thackeray in some of his other works. d.i.c.kens, though he never lived at the Temple, also betrays the influence of its charm. No one can walk through Fountain Court without thinking sometimes of Ruth Pinch.

Of the great lawyers who have occupied chambers in the Temple nothing can here be said. The settlement of the lawyers has now lasted for nearly six hundred years--almost four times as long as the tenure of the Knights Templars, and for the greater part of that time we find in every generation legal names which still survive in history, and which have been concerned with the making of history. The lists which have been compiled of distinguished members of the Inner and the Middle Temple are of great interest and importance. But even more important is the long, continuous history of the two societies. It has preserved for us such memorials of the Knights Templars as still survive. If the lawyers had never settled in the Temple, the Temple Church would probably have met with the fate which overtook the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, and all that could now be done would be to restore a ruin. There have been times, no doubt, in its past history when the church has suffered from neglect and ignorance, but on the whole the lawyers have shown a large-minded appreciation of their responsibilities. The last restoration of the building in 1841, in spite of one or two mistakes, was wonderfully successful. It was one of the earliest and best examples of the "Gothic revival" which was just beginning to set in over England.

We owe to it, among other things, two interesting works on the Knights Templars and on the Temple Church by C. G. Addison (died 1866), who was one of the first lawyers in modern times to study the history of the Temple in connection with the original doc.u.ments. During the last few years a great advance has been made in this direction, mainly by the labours of lawyers. _The Calendar of the Inner Temple Records_, with its full and learned introductions by F. A. Inderwick, K.C., Master of the Bench (died 1904), is never likely to be superseded; and the same may be said of _The Middle Temple Records, with Index and Calendar_, edited by C. Hopwood, K.C. (died 1904), Master of the Bench of that society. To these must be added _A Catalogue of Notable Middle Templars_, by Mr.

John Hutchinson, and a privately printed list of _Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple_ from 1450 to 1883, with _Supplement_ to 1900. Judge Baylis, K.C., Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple, has given much valuable information in his well-known work on the Temple Church, which has gone through several editions. More recently, Mr. H. Bellot, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, has aimed at recording the legal, literary, and historic a.s.sociations of the Inner and Middle Temple, and in a Bibliography appended to his book gives some idea of the immense ma.s.s of material which has acc.u.mulated round the history of the Temple.

May "the two Learned and Honourable Societies of this House"--as they are designated in the Bidding Prayer used every Sunday in the Temple Church--long continue to be the home, not merely of professional learning, but of general culture.

FOOTNOTES:

[73] The Outer, or "outward," Temple pa.s.sed into private owners.h.i.+p at an early date.

[74] A Knight of the (whipping) Post was a cant name for a disreputable person, who would be willing to give false evidence.

HOLBORN AND THE INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY

BY E. WILLIAMS

Just as Holland denotes the hollow land, so Holborn, or Holeburn, implies the hollow bourne--the bourne or river in the hollow. This once forcible little stream descended four hundred feet in a journey of six miles, taking its rise in Ken Wood, the beautifully timbered estate of the Earls of Mansfield at Highgate. After pa.s.sing through several ponds, skirting the existing Millfield Lane, it crossed the foot of West Hill and continued its course through what is now known as the Brookfield Stud Farm, till, somewhat to the north of Prince of Wales' Road at Kentish Town, it encountered another stream of almost equal rapidity, the birthplace of which was in the Happy Valley at Hampstead. The united current then rolled on through Camden Town and St. Pancras towards Battle Bridge at King's Cross, from whence it flowed through Packington Street, under Rosebery Avenue, into Farringdon Street, creating steep banks on its flanks, which still remain the measure and evidence of its ancient energy; until, finally, it debouched into that tidal estuary from the Thames mediaevally known as the Fleet. Holborn Viaduct, at a much higher alt.i.tude, now spans the hollow where once stood Holeburn Bridge, at the wharves on either side of which "boats with corn, wine, firewood, and other necessaries" would unload. But in 1598 John Stow knew of this burn only as Turnmill Brook. Now it no longer exists; the damming of its waters for the erection of mills in the Middle Ages, and its more recent absorption by the water companies, have led to its complete disappearance.

The Manor of Holeburn, which was bounded on the east by the southern part of the Farringdon Street portion of this stream, included both sides of Shoe Lane; but how far west or north it originally extended is not known. In the year 1300, Saffron Hill, Fetter (or Faytour) Lane, and Fleet Street were all outside its bounds. Shoe Lane was known as Sho Lane, at one end of which was a well, called Show Well, from which the neighbourhood drew its water.[75]

It was here that the Dominicans, or Black Friars, made their first settlement in 1222;[76] their monastery was in Shoe Lane, and in 1286, when they moved to the eastern side of the Fleet, by Baynard's Castle, Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who was lord of the manor and a justiciar, bought their old houses and established the first Lincoln's Inn.[77] Two other inns of that name, one next to Staple Inn and one in Chancery Lane, came into existence later, as we shall see presently.

Here the earl died in 1311, and he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.

By his will, proved in the Court of Hustings at the Guildhall, he directed that the houses which he had acquired from the monks should be sold;[78] but the inheritance of the manor of Holeburn descended to his son-in-law, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the King's cousin and Steward of the kingdom. Legal business was certainly transacted at his Inn. The yearly accounts of the Earldom of Lancaster for that period show that at his house in Shoe Lane, from Michaelmas, 1314, to Michaelmas, 1315, the amount of 314 7s. 4d. was spent for 1,714 lbs. of wax, with vermilion and turpentine to make red wax, and 4 8s. 3d. for one hundred and twenty-nine dozen of parchment, with ink.[79] He was beheaded in 1322, leaving no issue, and his widow, Alesia de Lacy, married secondly Ebulo Lestrange,[80] in whose family the manor remained until 1480, when it pa.s.sed by marriage to the Stanleys, Earls of Derby.[81] In 1602 it was sold by the widow of Ferdinando, fifth earl, to Lord Buckhurst,[82]

afterwards Earl of Dorset, under whose immediate successor it was broken up for building purposes.

The street of Holborn was at first simply the King's Street; afterwards it acquired the name of Holebourne-Bridge-strate. From Newgate to a little way west of St. Sepulchre's Church the high-road was known as "la Baillie"; from thence it bore the same name as the river, being carried over the bridge on to the ridge along which the Romans had built their military stone-way, known as Watling Street, out of which, in the year 1300, there turned two streets towards the south, namely, Scho Lane and Faitur Lane, and two towards the north, one called "le Vrunelane,"[83]

afterwards Lyverounelane, then Lyver Lane, now Leather Lane, and the other called Portpool Lane, now Gray's Inn Road.

The justiciars, clerks in Chancery, and serjeants had frequent cause to protest against the manner in which the stream of Holeburn was being defiled. In the Parliament of Barons held in 1307, the Earl of Lincoln, whose Inn was in close proximity, complained that

"whereas formerly ten and twelve s.h.i.+ps were wont to come to Flete Bridge and some of them to Holeburn Bridge, now, by the filth of the tanners and others, by the erection of wharfs, especially by them of the New Temple for their mills without Baynard's Castle, and by other impediments, the course was decayed so that s.h.i.+ps could not enter as they were wont."[84]

Later on, in 1371, a writ was issued by Edward III. to the mayor and sheriffs to the effect that

"Upon the open information as well of our Justiciars and our Clerks in Chancery and our other Officers, as of other reputable men now living in Fletestrete, Holebourne and Smythfeld, we have heard that certain butchers of the said city, giving no heed to our Ordinance, have slain large beasts within the said city and have thrown the blood and entrails thereof in divers places near Holbournebrigge and elsewhere in the suburb aforesaid, from which abominations and stenches, and the air affected thereby, sicknesses and very many other maladies have befallen our Officers aforesaid and other persons there dwelling to the no small damage of the same our Officers and others," etc.[85]

Political exigencies had led these justiciars, clerks in Chancery, and "our other officers," to settle outside the city walls. London had been a free city in Saxon times, and William the Conqueror had allowed its privileges when, by issuing his famous charter, six inches by one of parchment, he granted its burghers to be all "law-worthy."[86]

Successive monarchs had put their seal to further charters, renewing and enlarging previous concessions, so that none of the King's men, whether knight or clerk, might lodge within the city walls, nor might lodging be taken by force, and all pleas of the Crown were to be determined elsewhere. In 1191 the burghers obtained a "sworn Commune," after the pattern of that of Rouen, and it became a boast that "come what may, the Londoners shall have no King but their Mayor."[87]